|
|
|
|
Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
“I feel like I betrayed my Latin community,” Guillen said, according to ESPN’s translation of his comments in Spanish. “I am here to say I am sorry with my heart in my hands and I want to say I’m sorry to all those people who are hurt indirectly or directly.”
“I’m sorry for what I said and for putting people in a position they don’t need to be in. And for all the Cuban families, I’m sorry,” he said, according to ESPN’s translation. “I hope that when I get out of here, they will understand who Ozzie Guillen is. How I feel for them. And how I feel about the Fidel Castro dictatorship. I’m here to face you, person to person. It’s going to be a very difficult time for me.
A Cuban-American advocacy group in Miami, Vigilia Mambisa, has said it would boycott and demonstrate against Guillen until the Marlins fire him.
|
Bookmarks
You must be logged in to view your Bookmarks.
Hot Topics
Newsblog: MLB: Don Sutton never shy about voicing his opinion (7 - 4:15pm, May 24)Last: RoyalsRetro (AG#1F)Hall of Merit: Most Meritorious Player: 1982 Ballot (2 - 4:15pm, May 24)Last: Chris FluitNewsblog: [OTP-May] Politico: Congressional baseball game, May 1, 1926 (4376 - 4:15pm, May 24)Last: Morty CausaNewsblog: Paul Daugherty: Old-v-New schools of thought (5 - 4:10pm, May 24)Last: Matt WelchNewsblog: Tangotiger Blog: Ensberg and Tango speak on being locked-in (44 - 4:08pm, May 24)Last: GuyMNewsblog: LATimes: Microsoft unveils new Xbox One console (33 - 4:06pm, May 24)Last: Meatwads stronger now, ready for the houseNewsblog: FanGraphs: Cameron: The 2013 Cubs: Better Than We Think (40 - 3:54pm, May 24)Last: Harveys WallbangersNewsblog: OT: NBA Monthly Thread - May 2013 (1228 - 3:52pm, May 24)Last: Crispix Attacks 2: Swag AirlinesNewsblog: OT: NHL is finally back thread (374 - 3:45pm, May 24)Last: JDLkNewsblog: HHS: Autin: Miguel Cabrera to the max (22 - 3:44pm, May 24)Last: Joey B. has ignited his October #NatitudeNewsblog: Richie Ashburn’s Widow in Tears Over His Endangered Gladwyne Grave (29 - 3:40pm, May 24)Last: Ron J2Newsblog: OMNICHATTER for May 24, 2013 (9 - 3:35pm, May 24)Last: cardsfanboyNewsblog: ESPN: Forging bond with Pete Rose has helped fuel Joey Votto's desire to be great (169 - 3:34pm, May 24)Last: SoSH U at workNewsblog: Fox Sports: McLouth catch earns thrown beverage (6 - 3:22pm, May 24)Last: Ron J2Newsblog: OT: The Soccer Thread, May 2013 (1154 - 3:02pm, May 24)Last: Shooty is in the Trust Tree
|
|
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
That's because you're a religious nutjob who wants to impose his own personal Sharia on women.
Zygotes are not people, nor are fetuses. Hell, even a newborn infant isn't endowed fully with all natural rights of man, so it's not like you can make a strong case there either. The fact of the matter is you're taking an article of religious faith - that God's super-G magic happens lightening fast upon "quickening" the moment sperm hits egg; that at that point a magical soul appears and thus we must ignore any concern for the rights of a woman, in order to "protect" that "soul" - and attempting to legislate it out on all of the rest of us.
Now, to your credit, you have already admitted that you have some sympathy for the ways and means of Spanish Fascism, so you're not being hypocritical per se.
Are the doctors that carry out the mandate rapists? If so, do the ethical codes of the medical profession permit them to engage in the procedure?
Your position is one of absoluteness.
Find me a poll that includes the questions of rape/incest/woman's health. People may have a hard time accepting that they're actually "pro-choice" -- but only the true believers, ~1/3 if memory serves -- believe in the absolute position that you and the church believe.
That's in that poll. It's Gallup, so it's hard to say Pro-Lifers are twisting the data.
But the poll has 1) Legal in all Circumstances (22%), 2) Legal in most (15%), 3) Legal in only a few (37%), 4) Illegal in all (23%)
Legal in only a few is clearly the rape/incest/life of the mother category (where I used to be). Holding that position would ban 99% of all abortions. It's effectively pro-Life, as the self-identification shows.
So IOW, we're back to "take it like a man, slut!". You're part of the same crowd who ####### about every regulation on gun ownership, but with abortion rights, they can put stone walls in the way of the woman actually exercising her right, and there's no problem? Or does it really just come down to not wanting to side with the left on something, like it always does for your crew?
But as long as "a" state does it, it's not tyranny. When "the" state does it, tyranny.
When a state does it, you can flee to another state. When the federal government does it, you can't.
See #856.
Yes, the US lived under Sharia law in 1965. Well reasoned, Sam.
In 1965 women and African Americans were both second class citizens, under a system of laws perpetuated via argument-to-Biblical-authority, so actually, yeah. Pretty much.
From a libertarian perspective, you're choosing between two terrible options, and one of them takes less of your money. I think it's usually just that simple.
To libertarians, the parties are more similar than they are different. I see Democrats and Republicans more as two extreme wings of the same party than opposites. Both advocate substantial reduction of individual liberty in the service of some "greater good." The main difference between the two is where the priorities are in terms of liberties to restrict.
Personally, I vote for third-party candidates to protest the two-party system, unless there's a major risk of something shifting too far in favor of one political party. Then I vote for deadlock.
First we'd have to reach into our brains and pluck out about 30 IQ points which, even you'd have to admit, could be something of a logistical challenge.
Ahhh, the old "any system that doesn't exactly match my preferred set of rights and principles is equally evil" trope. Kaiserine Germany was just as bad as the Third Reich. Putin is as bad as Stalin.
You're really mining the old progressive chestnuts here. Well done. It's like a Wikipedia of discredited intellectual concepts.
I'm sure you'd be ambivalent between living in 2012 Saudi Arabia or 1965 Ohio. Hell, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of blacks would pick 1965 Ohio. All the women would.
Most of them would pick 1965 Georgia too.
I think its breaking out because of the absolute chaos in the financial markets. Its like telling a lie. To cover the first lie, you have to tell more and more. Well, the financial markets have been subverted and whored out for awhile now, and the chickens are coming home to roost because the contagion of bad debts is becoming unmanageable.
As for inflation, according to John Williams' ShadowStats, which uses readily available data, its been flucuating around a 10% baseline for the last 6 years or so. That sounds ridiculous, but look around you. A quarter of American children live below the poverty line. Almost 50 million people are on food stamps. Why? Because they can't afford to pay for the necessities of life.
And I'm sure Snapper would say that the woman made her "choice" when she chose to have unprotected sex with a man.
EDIT: Indeed, I see Snapper did say that.
I didn't think you could. Everybody should apparently just do what you want because you care a lot about the issue. Utterly self-serving, your world view is that of a spoiled child, and like a spoiled child your only response to not getting your way is to throw tantrums. Even worse, predictable tantrums.
I'm pointing out the inherent contradiction and incoherency of thought that underlines virtually all lefty thinking. I don't necessarily object to either position you laid out above, what I object to is when they are applied in accordance with nothing but the speaker's whims and caprices. What makes abortion rights any different from the countless other ways the government exerts control over us, other than the fact that lefties care about abortion rights?
Agreeing with me on everything would make a lot of people far happier and wealthier. I make better decisions than most people and correspondingly enjoy better outcomes. It's one of the reasons I'm such a cheerful fellow. :-D
Or, I'm addressing you in my standard manner, but you've decided to stop reading intelligently on this issue and pretend that I don't always speak in metaphor and rhyme. Come on, Franco. You're smarter than that.
I did answer "nothing," but not because I wouldn't have given up anything in return (not that I understand what we were supposed to be bargaining over), but because the point of my question was to ask what you would do, not what you would do if someone else did something also.
Yeah, I know what's going on. But, you're smarter that that. It would be far more interesting to actually debate you, rather than your preformance art piece.
You continue to confuse the South with the more advanced and civilized parts of the United States. Blacks and women were not "second class citizens" in the state of Michigan in 1965.
And the state of Michigan in 1965 bore precisely zero resemblance to a jurisdiction governed by Sharia law. Any thought to the contrary is simply batshit insane.
With a straight face, are you really going to deny there's been an imbalance of power between the genders in this country for the entirety of its existence? Is it possible to be that willfully ignorant about such simple and self-evident facts of history?
Everybody should apparently just do what you want because you care a lot about the issue. Utterly self-serving, your world view is that of a spoiled child, and like a spoiled child your only response to not getting your way is to throw tantrums.
You're jerking off in a sock again and calling it a "principle"-- why should anyone treat it with any degree of reverence, just because you've decided to name your spooge-filled sock a "principle"? It's worse than useless-- you demand we arrange our whole society so as not to offend crusty sock.
And that's part of why his joke works.
I think this is primarily about whether a fundamental right is being infringed. If you don't believe there's a fundamental right to abortion, then you're probably not going to see these laws as particularly tyrannical but merely preferential. Compare this to a proposed state law criminalizing political speech in Arizona. (Put aside constitutionality for a moment.) I suspect that an overwhelming majority of libertarians would be no less opposed to this philosophically than a similar federal law.
When a state does it, you can flee to another state. When the federal government does it, you can't.
Why not? We don't have sealed borders.
The cost of living hasn't risen by anything even approaching 77% over the past 6 years.
a.) A literal and direct imposition upon the human body
b.) An extensive and documented history of sexism
I'm pointing out the inherent contradiction and incoherency of thought that underlines virtually all lefty thinking.
You'll forgive my lack of acceptance regarding the objectivity of this statement, based less on the concepts than simply the way it is written.
They actually can't. As we saw a couple weeks ago when they were legitimately perplexed as to why it matters whether one has preferences instead of principles.
I think the vast majority of people agree with you on this.
Well, at least you don't profess to be confused by it, as is your typical m.o.
Yes, yes, we know you hate and fear principles, and with good reason. Principles impose limitations, represent restrictions and discipline, and what could be greater anathema to a spoiled child? But absent principles, how shall society be ordered? What makes your preferences more important than those of any other individual, let alone those of a society that disagrees with you?
Extremity from either side betrays a lack of objectivity, child. That you don't bother paying attention when I (or, say, Jon Stewart) point it out from MSNBC and the like is not my problem.
Again - "Agree with me or you are stupid or dishonest" is not anything anyone can work with. But keep trotting it out as much as you like.
That's not your claim, though. Your claim is any abortion regulation is both perpetuating and animated by that history, which isn't true.(*) I don't pay particularly close attention, but I seem to recall that there isn't even that big a gender gap in attitudes on the issue. If "patriarchy" was motivating everyone, you'd expect a massive gap.
(*) It's also kind of trite, given the inherent differences between the sexes in who carries children to term -- a difference that's never going away and dwarfs any "history of patriarchy."
Why shouldn't the same thing be said about racial, sexual or religious discrimination?
Leave it up to the conscience of each employer, shopkeeper and landlord whethere to hire/serve/rent to blacks/jews/women, etc. etc.
The closest I can get is something along these lines:
1) All non-robotic societies will inevitably have conflicts between individual ideologies.
2) Only a certain portion of these conflicts are logically or practically unresolvable by allowing each individual to act according to his or her own ideology.
3) Being forced to act against one's own beliefs is an imposition on one's individual rights.
4) There exists no fundamental right to dictate the behavior of another individual that can be imposed upon.
5) A society should limit impositions on individual rights to compelling cases.
I think you can call a philosophy that comes from these statements principled rather than merely preferential. My preference would be for nobody in this country to practice a religion. My position on the appropriate political approach to religious conflict is for all people to be able to practice their religion in ways that do not violate the individual rights of others who do not share their beliefs.
Knicks, Ranger, and Yankee tickets have gone up more than that. I'd wager that the prices of some foodstuffs have gone up that much.
Rents and housing prices likely went up that much between 2000 and 2006, though they've leveled off.
A lot of inflationary pressures have dissipated into asset price inflation.
Outside of some other rational governing "principle," the assumption that the historical norm carries onward into the future is perfectly reasonable. It is incumbent upon you to explain why this legislation against the free choice and liberty of women is *not* driven by the historical norm (patriarchical sexism.)
Fine. Shall we play a game?
Because (a) it's plainly driven by the obvious moral issues raised by the fact that the fetus eventually becomes a human, many words have been written to this effect, including by the Supreme Court, and deconstructing all that into mere "patriarchy" is silly; and (b) empirically, there isn't the gender gap in opinion you'd expect if patriarchy were a critical factor in attitudes.
I'm sure more could be written, but those are more than enough to convince me.
Maybe later, I've actually got to do some work (which is way out of bounds on a late Fridat afternoon).
But, definitely next time you're in NYC. With ample Maker's Mark.
Except that Snapper has no rape exclusion -- his faith doesn't allow for one, so he doesn't get to play the softer side of anti-choice when it's argumentatively convenient.
The rape exception is critical to the larger debate -- if you make that exception, and Snapper/Catholocism does NOT -- then you can no longer play the "won't somebody think of the zygotes!" gambit...
In any case, I will repeat the point I make every time this conversation comes up. A foetus is a human being. This is a fact. Denying that a foetus is a human being is exactly as rational as suggesting that gold has inherent monetary value.
Now, if you want to make an argument that a foetus is a class of human beings that should not have legal rights then fine. This kind of argument can easily be made. However this argument cannot use as its basis the idea that a foetus is not a human being. Moreover, it goes without saying that any argument that seeks to limit legal rights from a class of human beings is fundamentally incompatible with the idea of the fundamental and legal equality of human beings.
All of this is beyond rational dispute and it is only the theocratic creed of the secularist that impedes them from recognizing it.
It's really that simple. If you believe in the equality of human beings (which is a belief) then you have to be pro-life. No talk of souls required.
(And, yes, I said "convenience." Hopefully we don't have to argue about what that simple word means for the next 200 posts, like we did before.)
In any event, since I am pro-choice, I have no inherent contradiction; abortions following rape/incest pregnancies are completely fine with me.
An acorn is not an oak tree.
That doesn't matter to the larger philosophical debate -- in fact, I actually have a lot more respect for the true believer view that doesn't include a rape exception than the mish-mash nonsense of "rapes account for a small proportion of abortions".
If you believe in a rape exception (among any others) than why do you care WHY someone has an abortion?
If you're founding your "pro-life" views based the moral idea of where life begins, then there is no room for exception. If you're making exceptions, then the pro-life stance makes no sense.
Not the same thing and you know it. One, abortion, is a medical procedure affecting a single woman at a time that does not affect society as a whole. Allowing each employer, shopkeeper or landlord to not hire/serve/rent to blacks/jews/women, etc has a much wider effect on society and affects thousands or millions of people. The difference is obvious, at least to me.
That may be so, but if gold doesn't have inherent/intrinsic monetary value, nothing does. The monetary value of anything is only manifested by its demand, and the fact of the matter is that gold has been in high demand throughout human history, more so than anything else. Ounce for ounce, there has never been anything worth more on a consistent basis.
Median price of a new home in June of 2000 was $160,100. It was $243,200 in June of 2006. 52% increase.
I'd wager that the prices of some foodstuffs have gone up that much.
Perhaps but I doubt it for any of the staple items and the vast majority of non-staple items. USDA puts the increase in price of almost all foods at around 50% for this time period.
I'm willing to accept that. However, the implication of this is that all rights are contextual, and everything is reducible to power. In which case a woman only has a right to our own body in the context of people willing to enforce that right. Properly speaking she doesn't have a right to an abortion, she has the power to have an abortion.
Actually, the state of Mississippi is very vocally trying to do just that.
And I'm willing to accept that.
When we discuss "rights" we can either do so within the framework accepted by the modern American population - a slow-witted reduction of natural rights theory down to a political assumption, "endowed by" some nebulous Deist "Creator," or we can acknowledge them for the fiction that they are and discuss power qua power, and brave the bog laden swamps of moral theory that that leads us into.
Folks here rarely, if ever, are up to braving the swamps. So we grant them their mythos and tell ourselves it's our own private noble lie.
If human beings have natural rights, then a woman has a natural right to control her own body, including her uterus. Being fully developed and at least notionally adult, that woman has more natural rights than a child, and infant, and certainly more than a fetus or a zygote. Every functional instance of our modern interpretation of rights theory indicates that rights are granted/acquired in a conical shape, forward into time, as a person ages. As you follow the age curve backwards, the person is less and less endowed by what we would call rights. 21s can drink (happiness, I suppose) and vote, but 18s can't. 16s can drive, but 14s can't. Toddlers don't have the right to much of anything, and infants even less. At some point even the "right to life" is forfeit. I see little reason for that state to be set at the current 2nd trimester "viability" construct, personally, though I will always err on the side of the fully formed adult human (the woman) when comparing her pretend natural rights to those of the acorn.
Now you are correct that these "natural" rights have been interpreted in ways that have increasingly favoured the individual. However, the very basis of your (and others) resistance to the libertarian corpus of BTF is that the interpretation of "natural" rights in terms of radical individual freedom is neither natural nor just. Yet on this issue your line of reasoning depends upon the libertarian account of the human being and their responsibility (or lack thereof) to others.
Abortion has a huge societal effect. From the psychological damage it does to women to giving irresponsible men an excuse to get off the hook for supporting the children they father; "It was her choice to have it, dude".
Most compelling from a societal view, it that abortion has caused a dearth of young working age people, and aging populations are a huge strain on gov't finances in the US, and especially Europe and Japan.
Society has an absolutely compelling argument to increase the birth rate.
Dude is obsessed with the swamp.
I'm curious if Good Face has a response to the direct answer in #922 to his previous question regarding a level of difference (other than LEFTY LIBERAL LEFTY LEFTY) between right to an abortion and other rights.
Indeed. One good reason why tax rates should be 100% beyond a minimal threshhold on childless people.
I think the global population and global birthrate are just fine -- this just goes back to the same religious thinking that looks unkindly on contraception (and in some offshoot strains - embraced things like polygamy)... namely, it's better for my clan to have more people than the other clan, so let's not spill seed and certainly not allow any fields to stand fallow.
Does one protect an acorn from a squirrel? If I go rake up the yard am I clear cutting a forest? I think not. The idea that future-state potential humans have to be protected at the cost of an entire gender's control of their own bodily freedom is a bit absurd to me.
A close reading of my position is that a libertarian defense of *bodily* rights is almost always justified. Where I tend to part ways with the right wing libs, here and elsewhere, is in their self-obsessed preference of extrapolated economic "rights" over the impetus to social justice that is necessary to hold any sort of society together, and the obvious self-interest that drives them to that end. In order for a society to exist, individual desires must be balanced with social need. The hard core libertarians here don't seem to understand that. But on the issue of reproductive choice, no real balance need be made, because the scales are always going to tilt heavily toward the actual rather than the potential. I'm not favoring a woman's individuality. I'm favoring her *actuality.*
I did that *specifically for you.* Form is function.
a. If we're discussing forced abortions, I might agree with you. But we're not. In this case, the government is preventing one from having a literal and direct imposition on their body. Besides, the government makes all sorts of impositions about what we can do with our bodies already.
b. So? Irrelevant.
The number of women I know who have had abortions is greater than 1. The number of women who have anything even close to resembling "psychological damage" from their decisions is 1, though even that's a stretch. You're projecting.
Society has an absolutely compelling argument to increase the birth rate.
If aging populations are a strain, I'd be interested to see the research that touts cyclical, exponential population growth as a long-term viable solution.
Wouldn't having too many old people be a reason to decrease the birthright? You know, so you won't have the same problem in perpetuity?
Only if your idea of society is limited to the 19th and 20th century anachronism of the nation state. A post nationalist or post natalist society has no such compelling cause for birth rate, as such a society is not born of blood. Poland may not survive without Polish babies, but the United States of America needs only human souls who embrace her ideals and take her citizenship in lieu of their parents' blood loyalties.
Why? It certainly can't be through extrapolation from the "right to drive" and the "right to drink." Infants literally can't engage in the acts that constitute driving, but they can live.
Infants can. Sort of. As long as someone helps them out a bit. Fetuses and zygotes can't.
And thus you have accepted the logic of viability as decided in Roe.
a.) This is incredibly twisty. You are saying you are ok with the government preventing you from imposing upon your own body?
Not only that, you seem to have forgotten that what you initially quoted and specifically responded to in #845 with your typical flair was that protesting the VA law requiring tansvaginal ultrasounds was SO CRAZAY HYPOCRITICAL HA HA. If you say there is no difference between the goverment literally sticking something in your ass against your will and them raising your taxes - even if I grant NEITHER is right - I don't think that's sound thinking. It grants no difference between the body and your possessions, which I don't even think Gaelan could agree with.
b. So? Irrelevant.
If men have been controlling what women can do for thousands of years, bringing up sexism in regards to the difference between taxes and abortions - as you ain't getting no abortion any time soon - is not irrelevant. (That is an explanation of why it is not irrelevant - what is yours that it is?)
Geriatric Survivor! Awesome.
Actually, I think his position would require that he be okay with any drug laws (preventing someone from "imposing drugs upon" their own body. It's an authoritarian position (not terribly shocking) but a vaguely coherent one (more shocking.)
Yeah, I erased that bit.
Through quickening, I always have.
If you don't see the tabgible difference between the goverment literally sticking something in your ass against your will and them raising your taxes - not while saying the latter is right, but saying there is no difference, I don't think that's sound.
In what direction? If the question is whether the federal government raising income taxes to, say, 85%, is a bigger intrusion on liberty than a single state imposing a requirement that having already decided on a medical procedure, the medical procedure must include an ultrasound, the answer is obviously "Yes." Frankly, it's not that close.
Should anyone ever propose raising income taxes to rates of 85% you might at least have an argument. As it stands in reality, where the only notable tax increase even within the bounds of debate is potentially sunsetting the Bush cuts where top earners move from 35% to 38%...not so much.
Now tell me, exactly how would you feel if states randomly started requiring that any man having a vasectomy must first be anally probed with 12 inch dildo?
Then why, exactly, are you defending trans-vaginal probes prior to a basic medical procedure? I'm even more confused than I am by your normal replies, now.
The government already does so in numerous ways. I'm not OK with any of them, but nobody seems to be able to explain why abortion is any different.
If you don't want something stuck up your front bottom, you can not get an abortion. Hell, they're going to stick something up there when you get the abortion anyway, and you had something up there when you got pregnant, so what's one extra go round? This is like throwing a hissy fit over getting a blood test. Nobody gets to opt out of paying taxes though. Besides, let's not limit this to taxation... the government can and does restrict liberty in far more ways than just that.
You're not showing any kind of causal connection here. You're just saying, "There have been thousands of years of sexism, therefore, no restrictions on abortion!" This is underpants gnome reasoning. If we're playing that game, I think income taxes should be eliminated because of thousands of years of sexism. Society, though its duly elected representatives, has decided that this restriction on abortion is in its best interests. Just like they've decided upon countless other restrictions upon liberty that you're OK with.
FWIW, I found CB's 931 to be a reasonable (and principled) approach to the problem, but nobody from the left has even tried to argue the issue from that position, and I know nobody will. That approach could all too easily be turned against all the restrictions on liberty that you guys hold dear.
It depends on how many states. If New York passed a dumb law like that and I wanted a vasectomy, I'd go to Jersey or Connecticut.
You're now getting a lesson on why we don't like things being done at the federal level, binding every single American, unless absolutely necessary.
Then why, exactly, are you defending trans-vaginal probes prior to a basic medical procedure?
I'm not. I think it's a ridiculous law. I said that already.
But it's only one state, so its impact is miniscule and the hysteria overblown.
And if you were poor and lived in the middle of Montana without a car?
So tyranny is fine, so long as it's only for other people to live with?
You could probably use the company, so you're better off having the kid.
They don't have to live with it; they can flee it.
Now tell me, exactly how would you feel if states randomly started requiring that any man having a vasectomy must first be anally probed with 12 inch dildo?
From someone who's had non-elective cutting in that general region of the body, I can't imagine how any sane man would have elective cutting. So, probe away at the crazy men!
So tyranny is fine, so long as it's only for other people to live with?
You support all kinds of tyranny! Let us have our favorite tyranny too!
So women in Virginia or Texas, should they want to have basic rights to their own body, must pay a surcharge fee in order to move everything they have from their homes, in order to live somewhere else (that may also randomly pass laws destroying their right to their own body as well?)
And you claim to defend liberty?
I assume you were opposed to the Iraq war from the start, right?
Wanting to use David as a pinata is not tyranny, per se.
Actually, now that I think about it, I rarely support tyranny.
slaverytaxes comes up, is of no moment here.Particularly when you can't flee federal taxes, it being delusional to believe that a US citizen on a US passport can just show up in some other country and keep the very same legal rights and status.
1. You're not stupid enough to use that "slavery" there non-ironically, I know.
2. If federal taxes, which are not bodily invasions of your orifices by a foreign object, by the way, are applied equally to all citizens it's not quite the same thing. I mean, I know you think it is. That's what makes you the robot boy.
I have the feeling I'm going to regret this.
I don't own any gold jewelry, but I have bought it for other people. If I were to get married, I'd likely wear some kind of precious metal band, so I'll answer the question in the spirit it was asked. I have bought that jewelry, and would wear a gold band more because of its societal impact than any kind of desire for a specific color or feel of metal on my finger. It's the same reason I tip at restaurants, even though I think waiters should be paid a living wage.
Well, it hasn't. But Gold has a number of things going for it, which we'll get to in a second.
Because they are hard to counterfeit and relatively easy to measure. When traveling to different countries, standardizing prices by weight allows for security in trade, which is important for developing economies.
Tradition and as a check on the power of absolute governments to cause hyperinflation.
This question is stupid.
Well, a few places. I'm dismissive of commodity based currency because it represents a kind of magical thinking. There's this idea that gold is the only true currency. Why? Because that's the way it has been in the past, and if we were on the gold standard, things would be better. It's magical thinking. I'm also dismissive of anti-vaccination people and moon landing hoax people.
But the biggest reason I'm against it is a practical one. If we were to magically switch to a gold based currency tomorrow, it would cause real and sustained damage to our economy and my life. People would, quite literally, starve over a horrifically stupid policy decision that is completely preventable. That's why I'm so dismissive and antagonistic towards the idea. Anti-Vaccination people do minor harm to society, but they mostly hurt their own children. That's a tragedy, but it's not personally impactful.
First of all, I've never seen that argument on here. It's a bad argument, so there you go.
Unless you're talking about the relative levels of taxation in the US vs. the rest of the developed world? Not sure.
It's an ingenuous Chinese finger trap for sophists to use to argue with reasonable people.
Don't forget guns. "Move to Virginia" was the fairly standard response to people in D.C. who opposed the pre-Heller gun ban.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main